Winding apparatus



Feb. 1958 w. FARRADY WINDING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 31, 1953 I IN V EN TOR. Ma #1 M E4RR40 y ATTORNEYS United States Pate t. F

WINDING APPARATUS William Farrady, Eckhart, Md., assignor to Celanese Corporafion of America, New York, N. Y., a corporation of Delaware Application December 31, 1953, Serial No. 401,498

20 Claims. (Cl. 57-34) This invention relates to the winding of yarn and relates more particularly to a ring spinning device for winding yarn on a bobbin.

It is an object of this invention to provide a novel apparatus for the winding of yarn, which apparatus will efiect the operation of throwing the yarn onto a bobbin, or other yarn package support, in such a manner that the bobbin does not carry a long loose tail and contamination of the yarn is thereby greatly reduced or eliminated.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a yarn winding apparatus by means of which a relatively unskilled operator may thread the yarn through the apparatus and throw said yarn efiiciently onto the yarn package support.

One embodiment of this invention can be constructed by modifying a ring spinner of the usual type, in which there is a vertically reciprocating ring rail carrying a ring and a traveler, a stationary spindle rail carrying a vertical rotatable spindle on which a bobbin is adapted to be mounted, a balloon guide mounted above the bobbin at a point on the extended center line of said bobbin, and a feed roll for supplying yarn to the balloon guide. According to the present invention, this conventional ring spinner is modified by providing it with a special base for the bobbin and with a guide, mounted below the bobbin, for receiving the yarn from the traveler, which guide is adapted to engage the yarn only during the period of time when no yarn is being wound on the bobbin. More particularly, the special base is provided with a slot for the purpose of catching the yarn in order to start the yarn winding on the bobbin, and the base and the yarn guide are so mounted relative to the traveler that the base can catch the yarn during only a portion of the vertical movement of the traveler, preferably only when the traveler is at or near its lowest position just above the lower flange of the bobbin.

A preferred embodiment of this invention is shown in the accompanying drawing, wherein Fig. l is a perspective view of a ring spinning device modified according to the present invention, showing the path of the yarn before the yarn is thrown onto the bobbin,

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the special base employed in the apparatus of this invention,

Fig. 3 is a view in cross-section taken along the line 3-3 of Fig. 2 and also showing the spindle whorl, a portion of the spindle and a portion of the bobbin,

Fig. 4 is a perspective View showing the yarn guide used in the apparatus of this invention, and

Fig. 5 is a detailed bottom view of a portion of the yarn guide.

Referring now to the drawing, reference numeral 11 designates generally a ring spinner which comprises a traveler 12 mounted on a ring 13 set in a ring holder 14, which is in turn mounted on a ring rail 16 adapted to be reciprocated vertically by any suitable mechanism {not shown). Beneath the ring rail 16 there is a stationary 2,822,662 .liatentedFeb. '11, 8

spindle rail 17 carrying a rotatable spindle blade 18 (Fig. 3), of conventional construction. The spindle blade 18 supports a spindle whorl 19 having a bore 21 and an outer surface 22 adapted to be engaged by a driving belt (not shown). The spindle blade 18 is force fitted within the bore 21 so that the spindle blade rotates with the whorl 19 when the latter is driven by the aforementioned belt. Fixed to the whorl in any suitable manner is a bobbin support or base 23 comprising a flat circular plate 24 having on its upper surface a fiat disk 26 (Fig. 3) on which a flanged bobbin 27 is adapted to rest.

The plate 24 is preferably made of compressed fiber or other suitable material, while the disk 26 is made of a material, such as cork, which has a high coeflicient of friction with the bottom of the bobbin 27, whereby the bobbin is caused to rotate when the whorl 19 andthe base 23 are rotated. The plate 24 and disk 26 have central apertures for receiving the spindle blade 18, which is adapted to be received in the bore of the bobbin 27. The outer edge of the plate 24 is provided with a slot 28 (Figs. 1 and 2) cut, in a generally vertical plane, through the thickness of said plate, along a chord.

A yarn, designated by reference numeral 31, is supplied continuously to the ring spinner from any suitable source such as a spinning cabinet (not shown) and travels, in the direction shown by the arrows, from said source, under a thread outlet bar 32, over a continuously driven rotating lubricating roll 33 where a suitable yarn lubricant is applied, around a continuously driven rotating feed roll 34, through a back guide 36 mounted on a bar 37, through a balloon guide 38 mounted on a rail 39, and

then'to the traveler 12. When the yarn 31 is being wound on the bobbin 27 the yarn passes from the traveler 12 to the rotating bobbin. However, during the period of time when no yarn is being wound on the bobbin, that is, after a full bobbin has been removed and before the yarn has been thrown onto the empty bobbin, the base 24 and empty bobbin 27 are maintained stationary by the brake (not shown) of the ring spinner 11 and the yarn follows the path shown in Fig. 1 of the drawing, i. e. from the balloon guide 38, through the ring 13 and under a lower guide 42, adjustably mounted on a bracket 43 attached to the spindle rail 17, then up through the.

interior of said ring to an upper guide 44, mounted on rail 39, and then to the feed roll 34 where the yarn is taken up as waste.

The lower guide 42 is forked (see Figs. 4 and 5), being provided with a pair of curved fingers 45 and 45a, of equal length, forming a V. The fingers 45a are directed upwardly at a small angle to the horizontal, e. g. about 5, and each finger is bent upwardly near the base of the V to provide yarn seats 47, 47a, having rounded shoulders 48, 48a, respectively. The lower guide 42 is so mounted on the bracket 43 that the ends 49 and 49a of the fingers 45 and 45a, respectively, extend underneath the plate 24 of the bobbin base 23, while the yarn seats 47, 47a are positioned at a distance from the axis of the spindle 18, said distance being greater than the radius of the plate 24, which radius is, in turn, greater than the radius of the ring 13. Accordingly, the yarn running to and from the seats, 47, 47a will be disposed at an angle to the vertical spindle blade 18, which angle will vary as the ring rail 16, carrying the ring 13 and traveler 12, moves up and down. When the ring rail 16 is at the highest point of its traverse this angle will be most nearly vertical while as the ring rail moves downward this angle will become more nearly horizontal. 7

As stated, after a fully wound bobbin has been'removed, an empty bobbin 27 is placed on the base 23 and said bobbin andbase are maintained stationary .by the brake of the ring spinner. The ring rail 16, however,

continues its up and down traverse movement. At this time the yarn 31 has not yet been engaged with the traveler 12 and lower guide 42 but instead passes di rectly from the balloon guide 38 to the upper guide 44 and back to-the feed roll '34, which rotates continuously at a constant rate. Thereafter, the running yarn passing from the balloon guide 38 to the upper guide-44 is drawn down manually through the interior of the ring 13 in the formof a loop, 'is engaged in the traveler 12, and is slipped under the lower guide 42 so that it engages the yarn seats 47, 47a. The operation of engaging the running yarn in the seats 47, 47a may be carried out at any time during the up and down movement of the ring rail 16 except when said ring rail is near the bottom of its stroke, e. -g. within the lower fourth of its stroke. Then, when the ring rail 16 is moving down and is above, say, the lower fourth of its stroke, the brake is released so that the bobbin 27 and the base 23 begin to revolve. The downward movement of the ring rail 16 causes the running yarn to be pulled, past the shoulders 48, 48a, towards the ends 49 and 49a and causes the running yarn to be brought into engagement with the outer edge of the slotted-plate 24 of the base 23. Due to'the rotation of the base 23 the yarn is caught in the slot 28 and is broken, and the downwardly moving portion of the yarn, coming from the traveler 12, begins to wind around the rotating bobbin 27. The broken oiiportion-of the yarn is drawn off by the feed roller 34 as waste.

The lower guide 42 is so mounted that the'finger 45, which is engaged by the running yarn coming from the traveler 12 is closer to the axis of the spindle 18 than is the other finger 45a. Accordingly, on the downward movement of the traveler 12 the outer'edge of the plate 24 will be engaged by the yarn moving downwardly fr-om the traveler 12 rather than by the yarn moving upwardly from the lower guide 42.

The angle between the two fingers 45, 45a is such that the yarn is spread by said fingers at the time it is broken by the action of the rotating slotted base 23. For example, the yarn may be spread by the fingers 45, 45a a distance of about two inches at the time it is broken. Accordingly, the two ends of the broken yarn cannot engage to become tangled and the break is clean leaving no bits of yarn waste to interfere with subsequent op erations. The tension of the yarn is evenly distributed between the two fingers so that there is no slack in either segment of yarn and no tendency for the yarn to become tangled on one or both of the fingers.

When the apparatus of the present invention is used it is not necessary to employ any means, such as a rubber insert in the slot 28, for the purpose of gripping the yarn 'momentarily at the instant it is picked up by said slot.

The apparatus operates very effectively without such gripping means. In fact, in the preferred form of this invention no such gripping means is employed, since the gripping means tends to pick up and hold bits'of yarn therein, while in the absence of the gripping means the slot "28, being of substantially greater width than the yarn,

remainsfree of said bits of yarn.

During the manual operation of threading the running yarn under the lower guide 42 the yarn may sometimes slip from the seats '47, 47a and tend to become disengaged from said lower guide, so that it becomes necessary to rethread the running yarn under said lower guide. In order to avoid this there are provided downwardly directed yarn retaining projections 51 and 51:: at the ends of the fingers 45 and 45a, respectively. Thus, if the running yarn slips from the seats 47, 47a during the threading operation it will be caught by the projections 51, 51a and can be easily returned, manually, to said seats.

When the apparatus of the present invention is em- ,ployed, the operation of throwing the yarn onto the bobhinmay .behcarried out in a highly efiicientand accurate manner by .a relatively unskilled operator, and there .is

' surface extending between a point, spaced at a distance tive to a yarn package support, for directing the yarn 4 very little waste of yarn caused by unsuccessful attempts at throwingthe yarn onto the bobbin.

While the apparatus of this invention has been described in connection with the winding of a single bobbin 27, it is to be understood that, in accordance with the usual practice in the art, the spindle rail 17 may support a number of identical spindles 18 and the ring rail 16 may carry a similar number of rings 13 and travelers 12, so that the winding operation may be carried out at a. plurality of positioins along the length of said rails, using a base 23, a lower guide 42 and an upper guide 44 at each position.

It is to be understood that the foregoing detailed description is given merely by way of illustration and that many variationsmay be ,made therein without departing from the spirit of my invention.

Having described my invention what I desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

i. In an apparatus for winding yarn on a yarn package support, .a guide, mounted for axial movement relative to a yarn package support, for directing the yarn around said support, a second guide for engaging th yarn after it has left said first-mentioned guide, said second guide being stationary and having a yarn guiding from the axis of said support greater than the radial dis- .tance between said first .guideand said axis, and another point closer to said axis than said first-mentioned .point the construction and arrangement being such that the yarn is urged .from said first point toward said second .point as said first guide moves axially towards saidsecond guide, and means, operatively connected to said support for rotation therewith and spaced both axially and radially intermediate said first .guide and said first point,

r for catching the yarn moving between said guides as said that guide moves axially towards said second guide on rotation of said support.

2. In an apparatus for'winding yarn on a yarn package support, a guide, mounted for axial movement relative .to a yarn package support, for directing the yarn around said support, asecond guide for engaging the yarn after it has left said first-mentioned guide, said second guide being stationary and having a .yarn guiding surface for receiving the yarnrnoving to said second guide, said sur- 'face extending between a yarn seat, spaced at a distance from the axis of said support greater than the radial dis- :tance between said first guide and saidaxis, and a point closer to said axis than said seat whereby the yarn is urged from said seat toward said point as said first guide moves axially toward saidsecond guide, and means, operatively connected to said support for rotation therewith and spaced both axially and radially intermediate said first guide and said seat, for catching the yarn moving between said guides as said first guide moves axially toward said second guide on rotation of said support, the construction and arrangement being such that the yarn travels directly from said first guide to said second guide and the axial movement of said first guide toward said second guide results in an angular change in the direction of travel of said yarn between said guides and pulls the point of engagement of said yarn and said second guide znong said second guide and closer to said axis.

3. In an apparatus for winding yarn on a yarn package support, a guide, mounted for axial movement relaaround said support, a second guide for engaging the yarn after it has left said first-mentioned guide, and further means for directing said yarn so that the direction of movement of said yarn isreversed as it moves around said second guide, said second guide having a yarn guiding surface forreceiving the yarn moving to said second guide, said surface extending between a yarn seat, spaced at a distance from the axis of said support greater than the radial distance between said first guide and said axis, ,and a point closer to said axis than said seat whereby the yarn is urged from said seat toward said point as said first guide moves axially toward said second guide, and means, operatively connected to said support for rotation therewith and spaced both axially and radially intermediate said first guide and said seat, for catching the yarn moving between said guides as said first guide moves axially toward said second guide on rotation of said support, said second guide having another yarn guiding surface for spacing the yarn moving from said second guide from the yarn moving to said second guide.

4. Apparatus according to claim 1 in which said means for catching the yarn comprises a circular plate having a radius greater than the radial distance between said first guide and said axis, said plate having a transverse yarn-catching slot at its outer edge.

5. Apparatus according to claim 4 in which said yarn package support comprises a flanged bobbin mounted on said circular plate, the radius of that flange of said bobbin which is in contact with said plate being less than the radius of said plate.

6. Apparatus according to claim 1 in which said first guide comprises a traveler mounted on a ring concentric with said yarn-package support.

7. Apparatus according to claim 3 in which said two yarn guiding surfaces diverge away from said seat.

8. Apparatus according to claim 7 in which said means for catching the yarn'comprises a circular plate having a radius greater than the radial distance between said first guide and said axis, said plate having a transverse yarncatching slot at its outer edge.

9. Apparatus according to claim 7 in which said second guide comprises a V-shaped member having said yarn seat adjacent the base of said V.

10. Apparatus according to claim 7 in which said means for catching the yarn comprises a circular plate having a radius greater than the radial distance between said first guide and said axis, said plate having a transverse yarn-catching slot at its outer edge, and said second guide comprises a V-shaped member having said yarn seat adjacent the base of said V.

11. Apparatus according to claim 7 in which said first guide comprises a traveler mounted on a ring concentric with said yam-package support, said means for catching the yarn comprises a circular plate having a radius greater than the radial distance between said first guide and said axis, said plate having a transverse yarn-catching slot at its outer edge, said yarn package support comprises a flanged bobbin mounted on said circular plate, the radius of that flange of said bobbin which is in contact with said plate being less than the radius of said plate, and said second guide comprises a V-shaped member having said yarn seat adjacent the base of said V.

12. In a ring spinning device for winding yarn on a flanged bobbin, an axially movable spinning ring encirclig said bobbin, a traveler mounted on said ring, a spindle, a base, mounted on said' spindle, for supporting said bobbin, the radius of said base being greater than the radius of the bobbin flange resting thereon, said base having -a yarn-catching slot at the outer edge thereof, and a guide member having diverging yarn guiding surfaces extending under said base and having a yarn seat adjacent the convergence of said surfaces, said seat being spaced from the axis of said spindle a distance greater than the radius of said base.

13. A ring spinning device as set out in claim 12 in which there are yarn abutment means adjacent the diverging ends of said yarn guiding surfaces for preventing the yarn from slipping off said ends.

14. A ring spinning device as set out in claim 12 in which said guide member is forked to provide two diverging yarn guiding surfaces.

15. A ring spinning device as set out in claim 12 in which said diverging surfaces are upwardly directed.

16. A ring spinning device as set out in claim 12 in which said guide member is forked to provide two upwardly directed yarn guiding fingers and there are yarn abutment means adjacent the diverging ends of said fingers for preventing the yarn from slipping off said ends.

17. A yarn guide comprising a forked member having two yarn guiding fingers and a yarn seat in each of said fingers adjacent the convergence of said fingers.

18. A yarn guide as set out in claim 17 in which said fingers are directed upwardly.

19. A yarn guide as set out in claim 18 in which there are yarn abutment means adjacent the diverging ends of said fingers for preventing the yarn from slipping off said ends, and in which said fingers are at an acute angle to each other.

20. Apparatus as set forth in claim 1, the construction and arrangement being such that the yarn travels directly from said first guide to said second guide and the axial movement of said first guide toward said second guide results in an angular change in the direction of travel of said yarn between said guides and pulls the point of engagement of said yarn and said second guide along said second guide and closer to said axis.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,261,239 Elvin et a1. Nov. 4, 1941 2,388,239 Decker Nov. 6, 1945 2,611,547 May Sept. 23, 1952 2,620,999 Carter et a1. Dec. 9, 1952 

